Here We Go Again
by Negrek
Summary: A pokémon journey just like all of the others, only more so. A parody 'fic that I wrote to poke fun at some of the recurring problems in pokémon fan fiction. Please R&R.
1. Pallet Town

Disclaimer (applies to whole 'fic): No, I don't own pokémon, just in case any of you out there were wondering. Oh, and one more thing, none of these characters, places, or concepts are intended to emulate or are based on any fan fiction in particular. Any similarities between these characters and concepts and another work of fan fiction is purely coincidental. 

Rating: PG, because when people have no clue what to rate their story they rate it PG "for safety" and because there is some mild violence in here, too.

Author's Notes: This is my first parody 'fic, and I have no clue if it's at all funny. Basically, I wrote it because I was bored and fed up with the generic fan fiction that seems to permeate this site. Anyway, if you read this, please review so I know if this is remotely good.

**Chapter One: Land of Cliché Beginnings (Pallet Town)**

When Jake awoke, he could not at first realize why excitement suddenly began to bubble in his veins. He lay beneath the covers pondering what could possibly be so special about this morning as opposed to all of the others that he had awakened for. Wait…it was something like him…going to see the Professor…and pokémon.

With that stunning realization, he leaped from his bed and bellowed, "I'm late!"

His slowpoke alarm clock, however, wished to contradict this: its cheery face read 4:18 AM.

"Never mind, I'm not," Jake observed as he became aware of the clock's proclamation. A feeling of impending doom began to creep over him. "Oh, no! This is terrible! It's an absolute rule that a person who wants to become a trainer has to be late for their appointment with the Professor!"

He sat dejectedly on the end of his bed, pondering how to deal with this unexpected occurrence. He couldn't very well go to get his pokémon at this hour; he was far too early. Eventually, he decided to just crawl back under the sheets and arise at a suitably late hour.

When he awoke for the second time, he found to his annoyance that he was exactly on time. Muttering to himself about bad omens and the importance of untimely arrivals, he pulled the snorlax-patterned comforter back over his head and lay there for another fifteen minutes, biding his time.

When he at last emerged, having decided to wait an extra five minutes just in case, he was ready to go about the process of preparing for his trip in suitable last-minute fashion. He ransacked his room, pulling random items of clothing out of his drawers and tugging them on, the consequence of which being that he ended up wearing his green treecko t-shirt inside-out and one brown and one yellow sock , then proceeding to throw whatever items came to hand into his trusty backpack (no self-respecting trainer-to-be would ever dream of packing beforehand).

He bolted down the stairs to the kitchen where his mother was, naturally, waiting patiently for his arrival. "Late, are we?" she observed as he collapsed into one of the kitchen chair and began inhaling the plate of scrambled eggs that waited there.

"Duh," he grunted around a mouthful of yellow mush and orange juice. "Almost messed up, too. I got up way early."

"That's nice, dear," his mother replied, having heard only a series of muffled grunts that might have passed for an irate gorilla.

Swallowing his last huge mouthful, Jake leapt from the chair and dove to his mother to give her the required hug before leaving. "Where's dad?" he asked her as she released him from the embrace.

"Oh, your father? He's, um, off at work…or something. He's really sorry that he couldn't be here to see you off," his mother replied, puzzled by the question. "Call home often, dear," she added.

"I will mom. See you later," Jake added, sprinting madly for the door and bursting from the house without a single look back. He dashed up the hill at the south of town and over to Pallet's most famous establishment: the Oak Pokémon Laboratory. Upon reaching it, he wearily pounded on the handsome oak door and leaned against the wall, panting and waiting for it to be opened.

When it did, Jake's legs nearly gave way with shock. "Professor, what happened to your face?" he gasped.

"What face?" Professor Oak replied, mystified by Jake's terror. In essence, he had none, merely a blank head graced by grizzled gray hair. "Oh, you mean how I don't have one?" the Professor asked kindly upon realizing what had caused all of the confusion. Jake nodded mutely, still too shocked to speak. "It's because I'm a soulless character whose only purpose is to move along the plot," explained the Professor, voice still cheerful. "Now come in, you're late as it is."

The faceless man led Jake into the bowels of the Lab, eventually halting in a small storage room. Rack upon rack of red-and-white pokéballs were crammed into the sterile white room, creating a confusing maze of dormant pokémon. The Professor cheerily bustled in amongst the numerous shelves, and Jake watched him with unease. The faceless character had unnerved him. He'd never met the famous Oak in person but he had always sort of assumed that he was more than just a hollow plot device.

"Ah, now here's just the thing," the Professor announced from behind one of the shelves. "A nice regirock. The perfect pokémon companion, indeed." he reemerged, holding the creature's minimized poke ball out to Jake.

"A regirock?" Jake gasped. "You mean _the_ regirock?"

The Professor apparently mistook Jake's awe for dismissal. "Hm, you're right, nobody really likes the regis much anyway, do they?" he observed, carelessly tossing the pokéball behind him and back into the maze of storage shelves; Jake heard it clack to the floor somewhere in the distance. The Professor soon followed its lead, weaving back in amongst the racks of potential pokémon. "No, I suppose you're right. You're much more the entei sort of trainer, I'm sure of it."

Jake was stupefied. Since when did the Professor give trainers powerful legendary pokémon to begin with? "What about charmander, bulbasaur, and squirtle?" he asked tentatively as the Professor continued to scrounge.

"Them?" the Professor asked with a surprised edge to his voice, which floated out from somewhere deep withing the bowels of the shelf maze. "Yes, I suppose I have some of those on hand, too…somewhere. Hold on a minute, then, one charmander coming right up."

"Wait! I don't want charmander!" Jake called desperately after him.

The Professor's head poked around one of the racks, its nonexistent eyes staring in consternation and Jake. "Don't…want…charmander?" the Professor asked in consternation. "My dear boy, everyone, simply _everyone_ picks charmander!"

"Well, I'm not going to," Jake replied meekly. The Professor continued to stare for a few more minutes, then disappeared.

"And which one is it, then, for the boy who is too good for charmander?" he asked irritably, voice drifting back to Jake.

"Bulbasaur, please," Jake replied, completely deflated.

The Professor at last reappeared, clutching in his hand one very dusty pokéball. Jake reached out for it, but the Professor kept a very good grip on it. "Are you sure you want this one? I have some very nice vulpix and eevee here in the back," he asked in an almost pleading tone. "Don't you even want it to be an unusual color or something? I think it might look very good in a nice shade of violet…"

"No," Jake replied firmly. "All right," the Professor sighed, holding out the pokéball, which Jake rather snatched, afraid that he might withdraw it again. The faceless Professor then reached into one of the pockets of his white lab coat and drew forth a slim red device, one which Jake recognized to be a pokédex. After giving that to Jake, he continued to stand there, right hand stroking his flat chin, pondering. "I seem to have forgotten something," he muttered pensively. "Let's see, you have the pokédex, you have the pokémon," he suddenly stopped stroking and snapped his fingers. "Of course! Wait just one moment!" He scurried out of the room, leaving Jake alone with his pokédex and pokémon. Jake decided to program his pokédex while he waited.

Flipping open his pokédex so that it unfolded like a book, he was immediately awed by the number of buttons that presented themselves to him. The screen on the left-hand flap flickered to life, displaying a cheery welcome message, and a tinny, perky voice emanated from the device. "Greetings! I am your new pokédex, version 1,203,746.5-Kanto. Please enter your personal information to begin."

The screen wiped itself blank and replaced the welcome message with a blank trainer card and several empty fields. Jake filled them in obediently, having discovered that some of the numerous buttons were actually a keyboard with all of the usual letters and numbers.

Name: Jake Skyreem

Age: 10

Place of birth: Pallet Town, Kanto.

Physical Description: Short, curly brown hair, brown eyes, 5'5 in height.

He pressed the enter button, only to have the pokédex bleep angrily at him. "Error!" it snarled. "Incomplete personal description field! Please go into excruciating detail about personal appearance, including clothing description!"

"What?" Jake asked in surprise. "Why the heck would I need to do that? Who really cares about all of that stuff?"

"Why simply everybody wants to read a lengthy, overly descriptive paragraph or three about the protagonist's appearance," the pokédex explained, as though this were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Forget it, I don't have time for that," Jake snapped irritably. The Professor would be back any minute with the whatever-it-was that he went to fetch, and he wanted to be done with the pokédex programming before that.

"Come on, just a little bit about your attire?" the computer whined. "And what kind of hair color is 'brown,' anyway?"

"That's what color my hair is," Jake replied, beginning to grow angry.

"Oh, please. It should be something more interesting…'fiery red' is a popular selection."

"Forget it," Jake growled, shutting the pokédex's cover. The device, unused to being treated in such an unprofessional manner, vindictively erased the "brown" from Jake's personal description, replacing it with the much more fitting "turquoise."

Jake's hair obligingly became a stunning blue-green hue just as the Professor burst back through the door, puffing as he lugged along a large cardboard cutout of something. "Silly me, I forgot to get you a rival!" the faceless man chuckled, propping the cutout up against one of the racks so that it faced Jake. He paused as he noticed Jake's sudden change of appearance. "Been programming your pokédex?" he asked Jake sympathetically.

"Err, yeah, how did you know?" Jake asked, being as of yet unaware of his hair's miraculous transformation as it was safely out of sight on the top of his head.

"Nothing, I just guessed," the Professor replied, deciding not to break the news to the new trainer just yet. "Anyway, here's your rival. His name is Terry, and I'm sure that you two will learn to loathe each other." Jake now saw that the cardboard cutout that the Professor had brought was one depicting a boy of about his age and height, one arm upraised as though prepared to throw something, his black hair spiked according to the latest Kanto fashion, mouth set into a frozen sneer. Professor Oak proceeded to press a pokéball into the cardboard person's upraised hand, where it stuck miraculously as though it had been glued there. "I'll leave you two to get to know each other, then," the Professor continued. "I have work to do. When you're ready to go, Jake, just leave the way that you came in." He bustled out, leaving Jake to stare at the cardboard boy.

At first nothing happened, then suddenly a haughty voice began to emanate from the cardboard, though Terry's mouth didn't move. The voice sounded oddly muffled, as though Terry had been smashed up against a pane of glass and was now beginning to speak to Jake from the other side. "Ha ha, you picked bulbasaur, you dweeb. Everybody knows that's a stupid, weakling pokémon."

"No it's not," Jake replied defensively. He felt a small twinge of guilt, realizing that he hadn't even let the poor creature out of its ball yet.

"Just the sort of excuse that I would expect coming from a hopeless loser like yourself," Terry retorted. "I bet that you can't even battle with the worthless thing."

Jake began to feel an irrational hatred of Terry creeping into his consciousness. "Take that back!" he bellowed.

"No!" sneered Terry. "In fact, I'll just sit here all day, insulting you, until you beat me in a pokémon battle."

The option of simply walking away from Terry or perhaps just ignoring him never occurred to Jake. "All right, fine. Go, bulbasaur!" He threw his new pokéball down to the floor of the lab, where it expelled its resident with a starburst of silvery light. The small green pokémon turned to give Jake a bemused look before focusing her red eyes back on Terry.

The pokéball in Terry's hand dropped to the floor with a clatter. "Go, charmander!" Terry commanded, and on its second bounce his pokéball disgorgeda red lizard before levitating mysteriously back to his hand. "That's the pokémon that you should have picked," Terry taunted. "Everybody knows that charmander's the best."

Jake, excited at being in his first battle, whipped out his new pokédex to scan the charmander, even though he was already familiar with its species.

As he pointed it at the patiently waiting lizard, the pokédex gave a sullen bleep and announced, "Target is a female salamence, level twenty-eight, knowing attacks guillotine, frenzy plant, and metronome."

"What?" Jake asked in shock. "That's not what it is!" he cried, shaking the pokédex wildly. "It's a charmander! Even I know that!"

"Fine, so it's a charmander," the pokédex replied sarcastically, "at level fifty-nine, knowing attacks blast burn, slash, scary face, and fly. You're screwed, kid."

"Oh, come on!" Jake pleaded with the machine.

"Next time, try to follow the rules, okay, mister brown hair?" the pokédex sneered before falling silent.

"What a fool! Can't even work his pokédex properly!" Terry shouted gleefully. "Charmander, let's get this over with. Scratch!"

"Oh, no you don't," Jake said hastily. "Bulbasaur, use tackle."

Charmander used scratch.

Bulbasaur used tackle.

"Umm, bulbasaur, what was that?" Jake asked his pokémon, who was now sporting three oozing cuts on her forehead. She merely looked up at him, mystified. "Shouldn't you have, you know, charged at the opponent and knocked them over instead of just 'using tackle?''' Jake clarified. The seed pokémon merely blinked, then returned her attention to the charmander, which was struggling back to its feet, tail flame flaring up angrily.

"Tackle again, bulbasaur," Jake commanded.

"This time use growl, charmander," commanded Terry.

The battle was over quickly. Bulbasaur obligingly tore down the field at her opponent, throwing her small body into its creamy stomach. The charmander choked on his growl as the breath left his body and he was knocked once more to the floor. Though he wildly clawed at bulbasaur's green hide, she merely continued to bludgeon away at him with her bulk. At last he gave in, lying panting on the floor.

"Aww, man," whined Terry. "Return, charmander." A red beam of light erupted from the pokéball in his hand, encircling the comatose pokémon and drawing it back into confinement. "You may have won this round, but the war is far from over," Terry announced. "I'm the better trainer, you'll see."

"Hah. Sure," Jake scoffed. "Come on, bulbasaur, let's get moving. Next stop, Viridian City!" He turned to leave, only to realize that his pokémon was not following his lead. "Uh, bulbasaur?" he asked, turning back.

Bulbasaur ignored him, instead cautiously approaching terry. She was curious about how the apparently inanimate object could be speaking and, indeed, battling with pokémon. She drew closer, sniffing uncertainly at one cardboard leg.

"Get away from me you stupid pokémon," Terry raged. He was powerless to stop her, however, and she ignored him. Bulbasaur experimentally butted his leg with her head, only to recoil in terror as his sneering visage suddenly loomed overhead, coming closer by the second. She scrambled wildly away, the cardboard boy falling flat on his face behind her. The pokéball was jarred from his hand and rolled across the floor, coming to rest some two feet away.

Bulbasaur dashed back to her trainer, anxiously looking back at the toppled Terry. Jake had no remorse, however. "How do you like that, you cocky twit?" he asked, feeling incredibly superior. Then, bending down to scoop bulbasaur up in his arms, he departed the lab, emerging into a sleepily stirring Pallet Town.

He released bulbasaur, who proceeded to sniff with interest at a dandelion in full bloom to one side of the dirt path leading to the Lab. "Good work, bulbasaur," Jake congratulated her. "That really showed the twerp."

"Bulb bulba saursaur bulba," she replied distractedly, scratching at one of the already scabbed-over wounds form her recent battle with charmander.

Seeing this, Jake remembered that she needed healing after her fight. "Hang on just a minute, I've got a potion in here somewhere," he muttered, rooting around in his backpack. He shoved aside a jumble of extra clothes and underwear and dug past the pile of coins that had previously resided in hisgrumpig bank but failed to find the potion that he knew must be in the bag somewhere. Grumbling irritably, he began to pull out the backpack's contents and see if he could organize it a little better. Out flew some chewing gum, two issues of _Trainer _magazine, and a much-loved copy of _Training Like the Pros: Learn How to Become the Best in Twenty-Five Easy Steps_. Out came a lone wigglytuff slipper (what was that doing in there?), some of the spending money that his mother had given him, and, at last, the potion.

Abandoning any attempts at organization for now, he shoved the excess junk back into the backpack, briefly marveling at how a storage area so small could swallow half of the contents of his room, and turned the nozzle of the potion. He bent down and gently misted bulbasaur with the healing liquid. She winced as the stinging astringent touched her wounds, but then relaxed as the chemical began to do its work. In no time at all her scrapes and scratches had disappeared as if by magic, and Jake had only had to use half of the bottle. Closing it once more, he tossed it haphazardly into his backpack and heaved the bulging bag onto his back.

Contemplating bulbasaur's pokéball, which was still clutched tightly in his left hand, he asked, "You want to stay outside your ball?"

"Saur! Saur bulba!" she replied adamantly. Jake took that as a yes, clipping the device to his belt and turning to face what he hoped was north.

"Well, it's off to Viridian, then!" he announced, striding forth bravely. Bulbasaur trailed along behind, occasionally stopping to smell the flowers and wonder why her trainer was headed for the ocean.

Upon realizing that he had been headed the wrong way, Jake mareepishly did an about-face and marched off once more, this time actually heading in the general direction of Viridian. As he reached the town's outskirts, however, he barely had time to appreciate the vast expanse of waving grass that lay before him before his eyes fell upon a distraction.

A girl was striding towards him, a girl like none he had ever seen before. She was obviously immaculately described, right down to her woefully impractical miniskirt and high-heeled boots. Jake had the irrational urge to fall to his knees and worship the ground that she walked upon. Bulbasaur, drawing level with her trainer, merely sniffed disapprovingly as the stranger approached.

As the girl drew closer to Jake, who was miraculously still on his feet, she flipped her stunning silver hair away from her face and announced cheerfully, "Hi! My name's Mary, but my numerous friends call me Sue. I challenge you to a battle!"

----

Meanwhile, Terry remained, alone and forgotten, on the floor of the lab. "Hello?" he called plaintively, voice even more muffled than before. "Is there anybody there?"

Hearing no response, he tried desperately to inch closer to charmander's pokéball in hopes that he might be able to release the creature so that it could help him back up. His cardboard limbs failed him, however, and he remained stationary. Giving a resigned sigh, the cardboard boy said, "I may be incomprehensibly superior to that jerk Jake, but sometimes being cardboard is a real drag."


	2. Route 1

Author's notes: Wow, eleven reviews for one chapter. I think that's a record for me. Thank you all!

Anyway, as to some of the suggestions for topics to attack in future chapters, I will of course have legendary pokémon sightings, stupid Team Rocket members, woefully stupid sidekicks, and so on and so forth. Actually, the "love interest" is yet to come. Jake's infatuation with Mary is merely intended to highlight the fact that most Mary-Sue characters are unbelievably attractive. I'm sure that Jake will get over her at some point.

As for adding some action and adventure, I'll try to do my best with that, Moo. It'll be difficult to squeeze in around all of the general irreverence, though.

Edit: Rather embarrassing typo pointed out by Keleri fixed. Wow, that really changed the entire character of the sentence, didn't it?

**Chapter 2: Land of Chosen Ones (Route 1)**

"Uh, s-sure," stammered Jake, dazed by the radiant being before him.

"Oh, good," she chirped back. "One-on-one, right?"

"Yeah. Go, Bulbasaur," Jake commanded, still staring at Mary, unable to take his eyes off of her. Bulbasaur sulkily trotted forward to take up her place in the makeshift arena.

"Ooh, is that your starter? She's so adorable!" Mary gushed, bending down closer to Bulbasaur. "Does she have a name?"

Bulbasaur merely rolled her eyes, but Jake was beset by a sudden anxiety attack. A nickname! He needed to think one up fast. It had to be something cool, yet cute, if he wanted to impress Mary with it. Wracking his brains desperately, he replied, "Yeah, it's um…um…Seedy!"

"Aww, what a cute name!" exclaimed Mary. Bulbasaur rounded on Jake with fury.

"Saur! Saurbulbasaur!" she snarled angrily.

It was too late. The pokédex at Jake's belt blinged and announced, "Nickname recorded. Nice one, kid."

Mary straightened up. "It's time to meet my pokémon," she giggled. "She was my starter, too. Go, Dewdrop!" she reached to her belt and selected a pokéball, tossing it to the ground. It burst open in a most impressive burst of rainbow light, revealing a large, imposing figure.

"Isn't she adorable?" Mary squealed. The Suicune, whose normally purple tresses cascaded down her back in a rippling iridescent rainbow, stared over at Jake with long-suffering eyes. There was a massive pink bow fastened about her neck. "She's got psychic powers!" Mary added.

_Unlike my trainer, who barely has the intelligence to apply her own makeup, _lamented the Suicune. _It took her three weeks to figure out how to open her pokédex and another two to realize that the pokémon "center" is not actually vying for her center-of-the-universe status._

Mary must not have been let in on the psychic message, as she merely called out, "Dewdrop, use surf!"

Rolling her eyes, the Suicune called upon the power of water, the ribbons that floated in the air alongside her body undulating as though they were ocean waves. _Sorry about this, _she remarked to Seedy.

Seedy merely braced herself, then lunged forward at her trainer's command of "Tackle!"

She collided with a wall of water, drawn from an aquifer hidden far beneath Dewdrop's four feet. It roared down upon the unfortunate bulbasaur, sending her tumbling head over heels. Though the water itself did little to injure the grass-type, the sheer power of the blow left her reeling, but, surprisingly, still standing.

"What?" pouted Mary. "Dewdrop, hit it again!"

"Hah!" Jake yelled back. "I'm the protagonist! I can't lose! Bulbasaur, dodge!" Now that the battle had commenced, he was beginning to feel less attached to Mary as the importance of winning dawned upon him.

Another mighty wave crashed down, but Seedy somehow managed to jump over it at the last second, defying all laws of common sense and most of those of physics. Dewdrop sighed. _Oh, no, not another one of these, _she groaned.

"That's not fair! My pokémon and I have super-special powers. I always win! Dewdrop, just keep attacking!" Mary yelled, stamping her foot petulantly.

"Keep dodging, Seedy. We're bound to win in the end," Jake announced casually.

The battle raged on, neither participant able to gain the upper hand. Dewdrop began ignoring her trainer's inane surf commands and instead casting deadly ice beams at the weaving and rolling bulbasaur, but to no avail. For her part, Seedy was miraculously avoiding all damage but failed to land a hit on the powerful Dewdrop. The field was soon swamped by water covered over with a treacherous layer of ice. Neither trainer paid any heed to this, however, merely continuing to shout commands and occasionally announcing that the other party had "no chance of winning."

This might have continued for numerous pages until both combatants collapsed (simultaneously, of course) from exhaustion, were it not for the fact that the author at this point decided to get up for a snack and, upon returning, forgot what she had been writing about and began again on a completely different tangent. Thus were the readers spared from a gruesomely boring narration of a likewise gruesome battle.

Jake thrust his way through the tall grass of Route 1. It seemed to go on forever, stretching out towards the distant Viridian City in an unending forest of green. "Seedy, are you there?" he called. The bulbasaur was dwarfed by the tall stalks, disappearing completely as she slogged along the route.

"Bulba," she growled from somewhere nearby, still reluctant to respond to her ridiculous nickname.

As he continued to hike along, Jake began to notice an odd cloud formation building up. "Strange," he murmured to himself. The day had been perfectly clear when he left Pallet town. Dark clouds were heaping up on the horizon however, looming ominously in the sky. A sudden chill breeze whipped across the plains.

It carried with it a voice, one of tumultuous thunder and terrible majesty. "Greetings, young trainer," it boomed from on high.

"Me?" Jake wondered aloud, peering up at the clouds from which the voice seemed to be emanating. They roiled and undulated as though stirred by some unseen hand.

"Indeed, you," the voice confirmed. "You are the Chosen One!"

"Really? Are you sure that you're talking to me?" Jake persisted, suspicious of the strange voice from the clouds.

"Of course," the rolling voice replied, though it seemed laced with annoyance as it swept past with the wind. "Only you, Obligor Starwhelp, can save the world from…"

"My name is Jake," Jake stated.

"What?" boomed the voice, righteous anger pealing out like thunderclaps. Jake saw lightning dance mysteriously in the clouds overhead. "How dare you impersonate the great Chosen One Obligor?!"

"I'm not impersonating anyone," Jake replied indignantly. "I've never even heard of this 'Obligor' fellow!"

The blaze and bluster seemed to go right out of the cloud mass that hovered above. "Really? You haven't?" the voice asked, now sounding a bit pleading.

"Definitely not. It's a name that I would remember, I think."

"Yes…" murmured the voice. "I never quite understood what the deal was with that one. His brothers Bill and Bob seemed like such nice, normal kids. But then his parents go and name their third 'Obligor.' You're sure that you've never heard of him?"

"Positive," Jake confirmed.

There was some indistinct muttering from above, and large, amplified shufflings that put Jake in mind of some higher being irritably going through a stack of papers. The cloud mass slowly retreated, transforming into a less-than-imposing wisp stratus cloud.

"Wait a minute," the voice resounded again, "Isn't this _The Great Quest of the Legendary Chosen One_?"

"No, I think this is _Here We Go Again _or something like that," Jake replied. "I'd bet that you'll find Obligor a few screens over, then."

"Oh, great," grumped the voice. "This is the third time this week I've almost awarded the powers of the Chosen One on the wrong character! I can't believe it."

"What legendary powers were you going to give me?" Jake asked, now beginning to regret not having played along with the voice's proclamation that he was the Chosen One.

"Oh, you know, the standard package," the voice replied in a rather businesslike way. "The ability to talk to pokémon is more or less a prerequisite; no proper Chosen One would be without it. Then there's the ability to transform into pokémon, the usual additional magical powers, and so on and so forth. Oh, and the ability to open pickle jars without fail."

"_No!_" gasped Jake. "The legendary pickle jar-opening power?"

"Yes, I'm rather proud of that one," the voice replied smugly. "I do my best to ensure that each Chosen One varies at least slightly from the last. Usually I try to slide in some unique power; for Obligor, it's pickle jars."

"Oh. Well, I'm sure he'll be very glad to hear that he's the Chosen One," Jake told the voice. "Wish him the best of luck from me."

"Indeed. But wait, let me give me something for your trouble," the voice continued. "After all, I did sort of barge in and take over your story. It would only be fair."

"Oh, that's very kind of you but--" began Jake hastily.

"And therefore," the voice continued, rising once more to its full, booming majesty, "I hereby grant you, Jake, the power to understand all Pokemon!" The last word was practically a deafening blast of noise. Jake covered his ears, squinting up at the sky as the cloud mass drifted apart as the reverberations of the final syllable died away, shredding into innumerable innocent wisps and dissipating in the vast blue sky.

Jake uncovered his ears once more, though they continued to ring. He sighed and looked down at Seedy, who was peering up at the sky with a bemused expression on her face. "The ability to understand Pokemon, huh?" he mused. "I don't know if I like this…"

Seedy turned to look up at him. "Bulbasaur," she announced.

"Oh, good, it didn't work," Jake sighed in relief.

"Nah, I was just kidding," Seedy admitted. "So, you're now the almost-Chosen One, eh? Nice one. Remind me to bow respectfully or something."

"Hey," Jake said hurt. "There's no need to be so mean about it."

"Gee, really? Maybe 'Seedy' has a different opinion on that subject."

"What, you don't like your name?" Jake asked, further hurt.

"Excuse me? Would you have been appreciative if your parents decided to name you 'Sleazy?' I think not, kid. But let's put that one behind us for now. There's nothing we can do about it, but I swear, the second we waltz into Lavender Town…"

"Mary thought it was a nice name," Jake pointed out.

"Oh, you mean the one that named her Suicune 'Dewdrop?' Yeah, that's an opinion I respect," scoffed Seedy. "Oh, and another thing, if you plan to fall for every single silver-haired girl who wanders across your path this is going to be one _seriously _long quest."

"I wonder what happened to Mary?" Jake wondered aloud, ignoring Seedy. "We were battling, and then suddenly I was walking around Route 1. What's with that?"

"You should be thankful. You were just saved from hours of torturous battling," sneered Seedy. "Oh, whoops, that was me. I guess you were just saved from sunburn. It was also a very poor transition," she added, staring meaningfully up at the innocently clear sky.

Jake decided to end the conversation there, and pushed ahead through the clutching grass stalks, intent on his destination. A pidgey suddenly burst from the tall fronds in front of him, startled away by his noisy approach.

"Cool, a pidgey! Tackle it Seedy!"

Seedy obliged, charging forward and knocking the pidgey from the air. He tumbled to the ground in a blur of cream and brown plumage. Regaining his small feet quickly, he rounded on Seedy and attacked back, throwing all of the force that it could muster behind a running tackle of its own.

Seedy barely flinched as the small bird slammed into her, responding in kind and sending the bird sprawling once more. Seedy pressed the attack, lunging ferociously at the downed pidgey and knocking him off of his feet. He scrambled away and made a half-hearted attempt at knocking Seedy over once more, but she merely slammed him to the ground again. He lay there, admitting defeat. When Seedy turned away, he mustered all of his remaining strength and dignity and scurried back into the tall grass.

Meanwhile, Jake, who had been intent on catching the bird, was trying to find his lone pokéball. A prodigious pile of junk lay beside his cavernous backpack, which now rested on the ground. Jake was bent over it, feverishly pitching useless items left and right in an attempt to find the capture device. An inflatable azumarill graced the top of the precarious pile, staring morosely up into the sky with its painted-on eyes.

Jake gave a cry of triumph and straightened up, clutching the small orb in his fist. "All right, now it's time to capture that pidgey," he announced.

"You mean the one that didn't want to wait around for my incredibly disorganized trainer to sort his backpack out?" Seedy asked sarcastically.

"What, it's gone already?" Jake asked in surprise.

Seedy shrugged. "He was a pushover. Trust me, you didn't really want him on your team anyway."

Jake glowered down at the pokéball in his hand before angrily setting it aside and throwing his junk back into the bag. "I want to catch a pokémon before we reach Viridian," he pouted.

"Keep your pokéball out with you, then," advised Seedy.

The pair walked on, Jake beginning to stoop under the heavy load of his backpack. Seedy watched with some amusement as he staggered along.

The next pokémon that they encountered was a rattata. He lay sprawled out in a bare patch between two great clumps of grass, lying with his white underbelly exposed to the sun, eyes closed contentedly.

"Oh, no," groaned Seedy. Jake didn't hear her.

"All right, this one is mine!" Jake announced. "Tackle, Seedy."

Seedy reluctantly attacked the rattata, which had casually drawn itself up into a fighting stance. It was knocked back but not over, springing back at Seedy before she had a chance to recover. The vicious little creature set upon the bulbasaur with all of his strength, darting back and forth to avoid her irate attempts to attack him back. At last she succeeded in pinning him to the ground momentarily.

"If you're going to throw the stupid pokéball, do it now," she shrieked to Jake.

"Go, pokéball," he shouted, obligingly tossing the device at the struggling rattata.

The red-and-white orb bounced off of the rattata's skull, dazing him slightly before opening to draw him inside. Seedy's forepaws slammed to earth as the now-immaterial rattata snaked out from beneath them, the red energy that he had become retreating to the pokéball.

The ball rocked once, twice, as the rattata struggled to break free. It gave one final wobble before clunking completely shut. Jake dashed forward to grab his new pokémon from off of the ground. "I caught a rattata!" he bellowed joyfully.

"Yeah, yeah, we're all impressed," Seedy grunted back. "Listen, just keep that thing in its ball, okay?"

"Why?" Jake asked curious.

"Just trust me," Seedy replied. "I know the type."

Shrugging, Jake clipped the now-occupied ball to his belt. "Come on, then. I think we're getting close to Viridian. See that building just barely poking above the grass in the distance? I think that's the gym."

As the two began to walk again, Seedy asked the question that had been puzzling her ever since she laid eyes upon Jake. "Did you know that your hair is turquoise?"


	3. Viridian City

Author's Notes: Unfortunately, what with my getting a bit behind in writing my actual 'fic, this one got shoved aside a bit. Thanks to everyone who reviewed. Hopefully the next chapters will come a bit more on schedule.

Okay, so I admit that not all of the word-usage errors in here are exactly spelling-related, but I didn't want to make the title long enough to address all of them.

**Chapter Three: Land of Horendis Spellig Erorrs (Viridian City)**

Jake stared down at Seedy, perplexed. "What sort of question is that?" he laughed after having recovered from his shock. "Of course my hair's not turquoise!"

Seedy smirked up at him. "Well, I guess it could pass for more of a sea green," she admitted.

"Oh, come on," Jake chuckled. "You don't honestly expect me to believe that my hair has miraculously turned turquoise, do you?"

"Well, believe what you wish. It's not my problem," Seedy replied sagely, though her mouth twitched involuntary as she tried to restrain giggles. She darted away into the tall grass once more, chuckling softly to herself as she bounded amongst the rustling fronds.

Jake stood a moment more, trying to puzzle out Seedy's odd question, before shrugging helplessly and resuming his dreary slogging through the grass. While Seedy reveled in the caress of its twining blades, listening contentedly to the melodies played by the wind as it swept through the fragrant stalks, Jake saw only a lot more stupid grass that he was forced to slog through.

The afternoon was waning as Jake crested the final rise before Viridian City. Stretched out below him were quaint rows of small houses, their green-painted roofs lined up next to each other like rows of squat lettuces in some giant garden. Only the pokémon center and mart broke the verdant pattern, their brightly-colored exteriors and neon signs disturbing the charming rural atmosphere of the small city. "Well, here we are at last, Seedy," Jake observed. "That's Viridian City."

Seedy, who had been basking contentedly in the strong late afternoon sunlight, gazed lazily out across the quiet city. Closing her eyes once more, she announced, "I don't know what you're talking about. That's the Land of Horrendous Spelling Errors."

"You're a weird pokémon," Jake responded in annoyance. "See that sign right there?" He indicated a dilapidated old wooden sign staked into the ground nearby. "It says 'Veridian City' right on it."

Seedy merely smiled slightly at Jake's remark, reluctantly rousing herself enough to look at the indicated landmark. Upon observing it, she merely smiled more broadly and retorted, "Case in point. Now, let's get moving. I assume we didn't walk all the way to 'Veridian City' just to look at it."

"No, we didn't," Jake responded, snapping out of his pensive mindset and back into that of a determined master trainer-to-be. "Come on, we've got to buy supplies and challenge the gym." He dashed off down the hill, clearly excited at the prospect of visiting his first pokémon center. Seedy galloped down after him, falling into step at his side as he slowed upon reaching the city proper. Apparently, he had remembered that it was beneath the dignity of a great trainer to go running wildly through the streets of a town just because one had never been there before.

As Jake approached the Pokémon Center, he began to have a sneaking suspicion that Seedy might just be right. The usual recycling bin stood outside of the center's door, but the bold white letters scrawled across its green surface read "Ricykle You're Pokéballs," which couldn't be right. Eyeing the bin askance, Jake stepped up to the automatic door of the Center, which slid back to admit him with its typical reassuring "bling!"

The small Center was relatively uncrowded, the squashy furniture that filled the common area largely unoccupied. Jake stepped across the highly waxed floor tiles to the counter that ran along the opposite wall. A nurse stood behind it, smiling determinedly in his direction as he approached. "What can i do for u today, sir?" she asked him in an exceedingly cheery voice, while her cold blue eyes dared him to ask for any large favors.

Slightly taken aback, Jake merely requested that she heal his pokémon. Recalling Seedy, he placed his two pokéballs on the countertop. "Only minor injurees," the nurse muttered to herself as she picked the orbs up. Jake was surprised to see that her mouth didn't move as she spoke, her enormous smile remaining fixed on her face as though it had been glued there. "This wil just bee a minut, sir," she informed him, turning to a large restorative machine looming behind the left end of the counter. Plopping the two pokéballs into the wells on the machine's tray and entering a code on the keypad next to them. She stood back as the healing process began, the front buttons of the pokéballs glowing green as the machine accessed their occupants.

Jake, left with nothing else to do, tried to strike up a conversation with the nurse. "So, do you get a lot of people coming here after going to the gym?" he prompted, attempting to ask for information on the gym leader without being too obvious about it.

The nurse's smile remained fixed, though her body language clearly indicated that she longed to roll her eyes in exasperation. "The gim hasn't' ben open for almost a yeer," she informed Jake.

Jake fell silent once more, trying to process this new piece of information and make sense of the bizarre spelling errors present in the nurse's dialogue. The gym wasn't open? That wasn't fair! They couldn't deny him a gym challenge now! He wanted his first badge, and he wanted it soon. Distractedly, he asked an unwise question. "Do you always smile like that?"

The nurse's blue eyes, never overly friendly, became two deadly icicles that glittered warningly in the light cast by the flickering readouts on the healing machine's screen. If anything, the creepy smile only broadened. "Of corse not, sir. I'm always hapy. Nothing pleezes me more then to serv all the pokémon trainers that pas thru theez dores. Y wood I frown?"

Jake gulped and backed away slightly as the nurse stared daggers at him, goading him to press onward with his questions. The chilly silence was broken by a clunk from the healing machine as it completed its cycle. The nurse retrieved the pair of pokéballs from their resting places and returned them to Jake.

"Hav a nice day, sir," she implored Jake, while her eyes clearly wished that he would have unpleasant experiences with numerous sharp objects within the next twenty-four hours. Jake edged away from the desk, unwilling to take his eyes off the nurse, who was still glaring at him, but relieved to be able to retreat at last.

At last he reached the refuge of a lumpy purple armchair sitting in the middle of the common area. Collapsing into it gratefully, he threw down his two pokéballs. "Come on out, guys," he said.

Seedy burst out of confinement as quickly as ever. The rattata, however, seemed to be leisurely strolling through the materialization process. At last the nimbus of white light released by his pokéball formed his small shape. As the glow faded he was found to be sitting on his haunches, casually cleaning a forepaw, his curled purple tail lying across the floor behind him.

"Hi, rattata," ventured Jake, a bit put off by the rattata's unconcerned attitude.

The rat pokémon briefly looked up from his paw-washing efforts and inspected Jake. "Yo, dude," he replied at last, before moving on to clean his stomach.

Jake stared down at the small purple creature with some shock and consternation as it once again ignored him, before glancing up to see if anyone else in the center had noticed his ineptitude. To his shame, there was another trainer seated on an armchair nearby, watching the scene with some amusement. A large nidorina was lying next to the chair, snoozing contentedly. "Oh, er, hi," he addressed her.

The girl, whose hair was a mousy brown (clearly she hadn't paid any attention to her pokédex's stylistic advice,) allowed her eyes to meander up to Jake's head. "What's with your hair?" she asked him nonchalantly.

Jake was reminded at once of Seedy's unusual questions earlier on, and glanced down at her momentarily. She was watching with fascination as the rattata executed a difficult string of gymnastics in order to reach its lower back with its small pink tongue. Looking back across at the other trainer, Jake replied uncertainly, "What about my hair?"

"Well, I'm just wondering who would want to dye their hair that weird shade," she replied with a shrug.

"Oh, no!" groaned Jake. "You mean my hair really is turquoise?"

"Yeah," replied the girl, reaching down to scratch the nidorina behind its stubby blue ears. "Why, didn't you know?"

"No, it must have turned this color since this morning," Jake replied mareepishly.

"This morning, huh?" mused the girl, continuing to scratch. "You just got your first pokémon today, didn't you?" Jake nodded. "Get your pokédex checked out," she advised. "I hear some of the newer models are a bit too smart for their own good."

Jake hurriedly reached down and unclipped his pokédex from his belt. Flipping it open, he demanded, "Access personal profile information."

The pokédex bleeped gleefully and announced, "Access restricted. Administrative password required to proceed."

"I am the administration," Jake replied, frowning. "Just let me see my profile information."

"No-can-do, boss. All profiles are locked into the League network upon their completion and can't be retrieved without the proper password. Care to take a guess at it?"

"Errr….is it Charizard89214?"

"No, try again," replied the pokédex cheerfully.

"123456789?"

"Nope."

"Lanceisgreat?"

"Ooh, close, but no cigar," the pokédex chortled. "Illegal entry attempt recorded."

"Hey! You tricked me!" Jake cried, beginning to catch on.

"It's not my fault you're so gullible. I love that hair on you, by the way. It really draws attention from your boring old brown eyes," the pokédex replied before breaking into a fit of tinny electronic laughter. Jake shut it once more in anger.

"Take it to the mart," advised the other trainer. Her nidorina stirred and awoke, rising slowly up onto her pale blue haunches.

"Thanks, I'll do that," Jake replied as the trainer also stood and stretched before leaving the room, nidorina tramping along behind. He looked down at Seedy and the rattata. "I'm going to be gone for a few minutes, okay? Just stay here and get to know one another, okay?"

"Oh, come on," pleaded Seedy.

"Sure, dude," the rattata replied with a shrug. He turned to appraise Seedy with his large red eyes. "Dude, you're big," he commented. "What's that funky thing growing out of your back?"

Jake left the pair to it, taking his pokédex with him as he walked back out of the Center and across the street to the Mart. Here, too, the automatic door whooshed open to admit him.

The building's interior was filled with shelf upon shelf of pokémon merchandise. Crates of pokéballs stood near the door, across from tall shelves of restorative potions and antidotes. The Mart even catered to humans with carousels of training magazines, League paraphernalia, Viridian City postcards, and field guides. A burly man wearing incongruously small, delicate spectacles stood behind the checkout counter, fiddling with the inner circuitry of a great ball. He looked up from his work as Jake entered the store. "Is their anything i can do for u?" he called across to Jake as the trainer entered the store.

Jake hurried over to him. "Yes, I'm having problems with my pokédex."

The man took in Jake's unique hair. "Ah, yes. It's a bit intractible, izzat it?"

"Yeah, well, see for yourself." Jake handed the man his pokédex, where it lay quietly, uncomplaining. The man flipped it open.

"Display personnel info four trainer no. 09210," he commanded.

"Sorry, I don't speak your language," the pokédex said snidely.

The Mart worker grunted and tried again. "I want u two show me the capture record for trainer no. 09210."

"What was that again?" the pokédex chirped.

The man sighed and set the pokédex down on the counter in front of him. "Ornery little thing. I'm going too have to keep it overnight. I have to override the circuts. Will u be staying in the citi?"

"Yeah, I'll be at the Pokémon Center," Jake replied.

"Good," the Mart worker said, nodding. "I'll have this reddy for u tomorrow. Come pik it up whenever u want it."

Jake made his way back across to the pokémon center, relieved to see, upon his entrance, that the creepy nurse was currently grappling with an irate primeape that refused to return to its pokéball to be healed. The nurse grinned cheerfully as she succeeded in pinning one of the ape's arms behind its back, her other hand activating the pokémon's pokéball.

Jake found Seedy and the rattata just where he had left them. The rattata was now spread out on the thinning carpet, lying comfortably on his side as he addressed Seedy. The bulbasaur was staring back at him, eyes glazed. As Jake drew nearer, the rather one-sided conversation reached his ears.

"So then I was like, 'No way! Dude!' And then she was like, 'Yeah, dude, no way!' And then I was like, 'Duuuude…'"

Jake rolled his eyes as he drew level with the pair. Obviously, his gift of pokémon speech was a dubious one. "Hi, Seedy. Hi, um, Rattata," he said as he reached them. Seedy shook herself wearily, coming out of her bored stupor.

"Oh, you're finally back," she sighed gratefully.

"I was only gone for a couple of minutes," Jake told her.

"Yeah, dude, I was, like, only halfway through my story, man," the rattata announced, hurt.

"Well, I'm sure that there will be plenty of time for you to finish over dinner," Jake reassured him. "We're going to stay here for the night while my pokédex gets fixed."

"Works for me, man," the rattata replied with a shrug. Seedy was mildly disappointed at the notion, as it meant that she wouldn't be able to sleep outside amongst her fellow plants, but at least she would be warm inside the center.

Jake spent the next hour desperately hanging around the common area until the center's shift change, as he was too scared of the nurse to go up and ask her for a room for the night. Rattata curled up on an armchair and fell into a contented nap. Seedy, meanwhile, wandered over to one of the potted plants standing by the center's doors and tried to strike up a conversation. With nothing in particular to do, Jake watched her and listened to the rather one-sided conversation that ensued as she greeted the palm cordially. _I wonder if she realizes that thing's fake? _Jake mused idly.

At last, a new nurse came to take the place of the old. Though she, too, bore the same overly large grin, at least Jake knew that she wasn't already angry at him specifically. Rousing himself, he stood up from the sofa that he had been occupying and trotted over to the desk. "I'd like a room for tonight and dinner, too," he told the nurse. She cheerily promised to accommodate him and presented him with a room key, informing him that the rooms were upstairs and that dinner would be served between five and seven p.m.

Jake returned to his sofa and gathered his bulging backpack up, heaving it back onto his shoulders. He gently roused the rattata, who yawned widely upon awakening and stretched. Last, he strode nervously over to Seedy, who, having decided that the palm wasn't speaking to her out of arrogance, was now screaming at the inanimate object in indignity.

"All right, mister high-and mighty!" she bellowed. "Think you're so cool, getting to live here in a pokémon center with humans to wait on you hand and foot!"

One of the silk fronds of the palm swayed gently in the room's air currents, but it otherwise gave no reply.

"Is that it, huh? Is that it?" Seedy shrieked.

"Umm, Seedy?" Jake tried to interject.

Seedy whirled to face him. "Can't you see that I'm in the middle of something here?" she snarled.

"That tree's fake," Jake informed her.

"Fake?" Seedy asked quizzically, slowly swiveling around to inspect the tall palm.

"Yep," Jake informed her. "It's not going to talk to you."

"Oh," Seedy grunted, deflated. "Well, I guess that explains its behavior."

"Sure. Come on, I'm headed to our room."

The evening passed uneventfully, with Rattata dozing quietly on the room's bed and Seedy idly watching a gardening show on television. Jake was sorting through his backpack, trying to put the mass of junk into some semblance of order, but was soon distracted by an old book of his, _Legends of the Pokémon World._ Abandoning the most likely futile project of cleaning out his backpack, he sat on the edge of the bed and perused the much-loved book.

Dinner came and went, and Jake soon began to feel drowsy. "It's about time for bed," he informed Seedy, who sighed regretfully and flicked the television off, silencing the commentary on aerating soil. After a few minutes Jake successfully located his toothbrush, toothpaste, and pajamas in the mound of items that now loomed in one corner of the room, and went into the bathroom to change and brush his teeth. Seedy settled down contentedly, preparing for a good night's sleep, but was immediately distracted when Jake reemerged from the bathroom.

"What are _those_?" she asked scornfully.

"What are what?" Jake said, taken aback.

"Those pajama things! They've got azurills on them!" Indeed, Jake's attire sported a repeating pattern of the cute little mouse-like creatures. Jake took a moment to inspect them critically.

"What's so bad about that?" he asked finally.

"They're sissy, that's what," scoffed Seedy. "Honestly, what sort of person wears azurill pajamas? Dear Sol, I can't believe I got stuck with you as my trainer."

Jake, hurt and unable to come up with anything to say to that statement, merely crawled under the covers and reached over to turn off the light. Seedy sighed exasperatedly and settled back down. After a few minutes, a quiet whisper drifted across the bed to her.

"Seedy?"

"What?" she growled irritably.

"I thought of a good name for Rattata," Jake told her.

"Oh, really? How nice," Seedy replied. He was really keeping her awake for this?

"Yeah, I think that 'Dude' would be a good name," Jake said proudly.

"Oh dear Lord Sol!" Seedy exclaimed.

"What?"

"Nothing," Seedy sighed. It wasn't like he was going to change his mind based on her opinion anyway. "Just go to sleep already."

Jake obeyed, falling into a peaceful slumber. He was awakened early by an odd chewing noise. He sat up in bed, blinking as his eyes tried to adjust to the predawn grayness. The chewing noise was coming from somewhere near the table by the window. Jake frowned and fumbled along the wall for the light switch. He winced as he flicked it on and brilliant lamplight blossomed in the gloom. Once his eyes had adjusted, he peered intently down towards the area where the noise had been coming from, though it had ceased.

Dude was frozen near the tableleg, which was now considerably thinner than it had been at the night's outset. The polished wood surface was now marred by gnaw marks, and Dude guiltily spat out a splinter as Jake looked at him, horrified.

"Sorry, man," Dude apologized.

Seedy, who had been awoken by the sudden light, shook herself and took in the scene wearily. "What were you doing?" Jake cried, horrified.

"Just chewin', man," Dude replied. "I've gotta keep my teeth sharp somehow, you know."

"Rattata are primarily nocturnal," Seedy informed Jake, who was still staring at Dude in slack-jawed amazement. Apparently, he found it surprising that a bored and restless rattata could chew through three electrical cords (after unplugging them, of course; Dude wasn't stupid), seventeen pencils from among the several dozen that Jake's backpack had disgorged, and most of one table leg in under five hours. "Why did you think he was sleeping all day?"

"Well, I, er…" Jake fumbled for something to say. He certainly didn't want to tell the truth, that he thought that Dude was just lazy. "Hey, Rattata, I guess now is as good a time as any to tell you," he said, veering off onto a different subject. "I've decided to nickname you 'Dude.'"

"Whoah, dude, sweet! Awesome, man," Dude replied enthusiastically. "So it's all cool that I sorta, um, chewed up some stuff?"

"Yeah, I guess," Jake replied. "I'll buy you something to gnaw on the next time we'll be staying inside overnight."

"Thanks, man. This table gives yah horrible splinters," Dude told Jake, spitting another one out.

"Well, just stay away from it for the rest of the night. If you have to chew something, try another pencil."

"Whoah, whoah, whoah," Seedy interjected. "The rest of the night? You don't seriously mean that you're going back to bed now, do you?"

"Well, that was the plan, yes," Jake replied with a sinking feeling.

"No way, dude! Look, the sun's about to rise! Everybody knows that trainers gotta get up early so they can get on the road," Dude chuckled.

"Oh, really?" Jake asked sadly. "Trainers all get up early?"

"Yup. Let's get rolling, oh great master," Seedy said with a smile as she jumped down from the bed.

The two pokémon goaded their reluctant trainer forward, pushing him to get dressed, cram his still-disorganized junk back into the cavernous backpack, and get ready to roll once more. Jake staggered down the stairs within a half hour, blearily accepting the bowl of oatmeal shoved at him by nurse currently on duty. He spooned it down groggily without noticing taste or texture before departing the center, Seedy and Dude brightly trotting nearby.

Jake stopped in at the mart to pick up his pokédex and some further supplies for his travels. He approached the long counter after picking three pokéballs out of the bin near the door and grabbing two each of healing potions and antidotes off of a well-stocked shelf.

"I'd like to buy these and pick up my pokédex. I left it here last night to be repaired," Jake told the lady working the counter.

"O yes, I remember that dex," she said, reaching under the counter and drawing it forth. "Rob sez its al fixed. That wil bee 2400Pk, pleez."

Fortunately, Jake had had the foresight to stuff his wallet into the front of his backpack rather than throwing it in with most of the rest of his items. He carefully counted out the money, not feeling too worried to notice that he barely had any left. He could count on winning a few more battles soon anyway. He squirreled the potions and antidotes away in the side pockets of his backpack and clipped the three empty balls to his belt. He already knew that he wanted a pikachu from Viridian forest, and there would probably be a couple more pokémon that he would want to capture soon, too.

"Have you ever heard of spell check?" Jake asked the cashier absently as he stuffed his newly acquired items away and clipped the pokédex back onto his belt.

"Wat, you think I'd wast my time with that stupid program?" the cashier laughed. "What's the point?"

Jake shrugged and straightened up, heaving his backpack back onto his back. He was beginning to feel awake and ready for the day ahead. He bade the cashier farewell and turned to leave the mart.

Once outside, Jake took a moment to decide where to head. If the gym was closed, there was no further point in hanging about here, and he wouldn't go east to Victory Road either, not yet. That left north to Viridian Forest and Pewter City, unless he fancied trying to hitch a ride to Cinnabar far to the south.

"Well, let's get going, guys," he addressed his pokémon. "It's off to Pewter City for us."

"Sweet, dude," Dude replied enthusiastically. "I have, like, no clue what that is, but that's cool."

The pair started out happily northwards, leaving Seedy to sit and ponder a minute longer. She stared after her trainer and the eternally cheerful rattata and sighed. "Why anyone would want to visit the Land of Great Angst is beyond me," she muttered under her breath.

"Come on, Seedy, you're holding us up!" Jake called back to her.

"Coming!" Seedy responded, shaking her head as she dutifully dashed forward to catch up.


	4. Route 2

**Chapter Four: Land of Ridiculously Short Chapters (Route 2)**

"So, is there any real point to Route 2?" Jake wondered aloud as he trod across the short stretch of land separating Viridian City from its namesake, the Viridian Forest.

"No," Seedy replied simply.

"Dude, this is, like, boring and pointless," Dude observed.

"You would think that they could have just built Viridian City right up to the border of Viridian Forest and saved us the trouble of walking through this short, boring, pointless little route," Jake grumped.

Seedy decided not to point out the blatantly flawed logic of this statement. The trio walked on.


	5. Viridian Forest

Author's Notes: And here we have the actual chapter for this week! I was actually considering slacking off and just putting up chapter four, but I decided to go ahead and do this one, too.

Angst, VulpixTrainer, is defined as "a general feeling of insecurity." In fanfiction, it's typically a storyline where the main character spends an inordinate amount of time feeling sorry for themselves. And usually, as Yellowspottedlizard pointed out, they get abused or beaten or tortured or something, too.

I have actually read only one book by Terry Pratchett before, PyroArts. Wow, you put this on your favorites list? Ironic, because this is my non-serious 'fic and I don't think of it as as good as the others.

**Chapter Five: Land of Stereotypically Evil Pokémon (Viridian Forest)**

"Well, here we are, guys: Viridian Forest," Jake observed, gesturing widely.

The trainer and his Pokemon were bathed in the shadows cast by the mighty, moss-covered trees that rose up from the ground around them. The ancient giants stretched gnarled branches back and forth over the path, almost completely obscuring the sun. The spongy ground was covered by a generous layer of wet, decaying leaves.

"Duh," Dude responded. "It, like, says that on the sign right there."

Indeed, a wizened, slime-covered sign to one side of the path announced that this was "Viridian Forest" in untidy green letters. Jake hadn't noticed this, as it blended so perfectly with its environment that it was almost perfectly camouflaged.

"Come on, let's not stand around here all day," Seedy urged.

"Why the big rush? I thought that this place would be a natural haven for grass-types," Jake said.

"No, this is a bug habitat here. Not enough sun. And as for the rush, it makes no difference to me, but I suppose that you're awful eager to spend a night in here."

Jake shivered, a sudden vision of himself in his azurill pajamas, huddled desperately in his sleeping bag as slimy, unmentionable creatures slithered about in the darkened forest floating before his eyes. "Good point. Let's go."

They set off, Jake peering eagerly around him as he went. The dark forest floor was nearly devoid of undergrowth, but weedle and caterpie inched undeterred over the loamy earth. These Jake largely ignored, though he occasionally had Seedy or Dude fight one out of boredom. No real trainer would be caught with such a pokémon, which were considered to be the favorites of bug catchers and champion wanna-bes only.

After some time, Jake came upon another trainer heading in the opposite direction. The openness of the forest allowed Jake to see the other boy a long way off. Strutting along the forest path with nary a glance to the left or right, the boy stood out from the drab background of the darkened forest, his flamboyant orange-and purple outfit showing up beautifully against the gloom.

The boy caught sight of Jake as well and called out to him. "Hey, you! Are you a trainer?" he shouted as he continued along the path at his cool, unhurried pace.

"Yeah," Jake replied.

"All right! How about a battle?" the other boy asked, stopping about six feet from Jake.

"Oh, sure," Jake said. Here was the money-making opportunity he had been waiting for. Seedy, you're up."

"One on one all right with you?" the other boy asked, removing a pokéball from the wide studded belt strapped diagonally across his orange-suited chest.

"Yeah," Jake replied. The other boy nodded and threw out his pokéball. It burst open to release an apelike pokémon.

Jake reached for his pokédex, hoping that it was behaving better after its tune-up. Aiming it at the pokémon, he waited with bated breath as the analysis light on its top flashed. At last it purred, "Target is mankey, the pig monkey pokémon. This pokémon lives in large colonies. Such groups generally spend most of their time in trees, descending only to hunt."

Jake smiled and returned the pokédex to his belt. It certainly seemed to be working properly. "Okay, Seedy, let's start things off with leech seed." Seedy had mastered the technique early yesterday afternoon and Jake was eager to show it off.

The bulb on Seedy's back shot a cloud of greenish spores into the air, the attack drifting straight at the mankey's hairy body. He tried to dodge out of the way, but wasn't quick enough and the spores took hold in his creamy fur, sending filmy roots down into his skin to sap his energy. He cursed and scratched at them with his paws but to no avail.

"Come on Mankey, hit back with cross chop!" the opposing trainer yelled enthusiastically.

"You know cross chop?" Seedy grunted, steeling herself for a quick leap out of the way. The fighting maneuver was very powerful but inaccurate.

"Well, err, no," Mankey replied. "But my trainer thinks I know it and I'm trying to humor him. Pretend to be hurt, okay?"

"Huh?" Seedy asked in disbelief. The Mankey lunged at her, crossing his skinny forelimbs in front of his face and executing an awkward simultaneous chop with both hands. Both strikes whistled through the air to either side of Seedy, who was staring at the Mankey in disbelief. He overbalanced and teetered dramatically on one foot before finally righting himself and glaring at Seedy.

"I said, pretend to be hurt!" he hissed as ferociously as possible, shooting a nervous glance back at his trainer, who was apparently under the impression that the attack had been successful and was cheering his pokémon on.

"Oh…um….O! I am smitten!" Seedy reeled away, shaking her green head madly as though trying to throw off a daze. "What's with the weird masquerade thing?" she whispered under her breath.

Jake was trying his hardest not to laugh as the fight continued. The other boy was calling out powerful attacks that Mankey, at his low level, hadn't mastered, blissfully unaware that his pokémon had no idea how to do them. Seedy played along, though she was sure to carry out Jake's battle commands as well. The two pokémon continued to converse as they sparred.

Meanwhile, Dude's mind was on something other than the fight. His nose twitched and he glanced around with interest. "Dude, what's that sweet smell?" he wondered aloud. Sniffing the air, Dude allowed his nose to lead him away from the fight, off the path, and deeper into the woods. Jake, who was engrossed in the battle, such as it was, didn't notice his absence.

Mankey was a sorry sight, bright green shoots sprouting incongruously from his unruly white fur, though he continued to fight on wearily as their energy-sapping effect which relentlessly to drain his health. Though tired from the leech seed and Seedy's repeated attacks, he continued to chat good-naturedly. "I don't know where he got his delusions of grandeur from," he told Seedy. "I knew he was trouble when he was trying to capture me. He was telling his cyndaquil to use flamethrower against me. The poor boy doesn't even know how to ember, much less torch me. I tried to get away, but I was already hurt from a nasty encounter with a Spearow and he ended up catching me."

"Ah, he's one of those, then," Seedy said, rolling out of the way of an awkward "iron tail." "Watches too much TV and thinks that pokémon can use any of their attacks whenever. Disgraceful. They shouldn't be allowed licenses." She pulled out of her roll and rammed into his leg, sending him sprawling.

"Yeah…well…it…could be worse," Mankey panted, getting shakily to his feet once more. He was near collapse, wheezing audibly through his piglike snout.

"Of course. You could have gotten one of those idiots who try to make their pokémon use a move that they couldn't even learn. 'Come on, Treecko! Razor leaf! Razor leaf, I say!' It's horrible." She tackled Mankey once more. This time, he fell and didn't get up.

"I'm done for," he announced, lying prone in the wet leaves. "Nice talking to you. Good battle."

"Good battle," Seedy agreed as Mankey dissolved into crimson energy and returned to his pokéball.

"Well, you beat me," the other boy announced. "Oh, I didn't get a chance to properly introduce myself before, did I? I'm Eric."

"Jake," Jake replied. "Cool Mankey. Where'd you get it?"

"Oh, just a bit west of Viridian, you know. I was there a little earlier, but then I decided to head to Pewter."

"And you're coming back already?" Jake asked, surprised.

"Yeah, well, Brock is harder than he looks, okay?" Eric replied testily. He reached into one of the pockets of his neon-orange pants and withdrew a wallet. As he was counting out money, he asked, "So, you just started your Pokémon Journey recently, too?"

"Well, I started my pokémon journey, yeah," Jake said.

"What? You're just going on a 'pokémon journey?' That's so two years ago."

"Okay…"

"My Journey is cooler than yours," Eric announced, handing Jake half of his money. "It's capitalized for no reason. And I'm a Trainer, too."

"Oh, uh, cool. Yeah, that's my real aspiration. I'm only a trainer now, but someday I hope to be a great randomly capitalized Trainer like you," Jake told Eric as he took the money and added it to his wallet.

Eric missed the sarcasm. "Keep working. Maybe someday you'll become a great like me. Catch you around." He sauntered off through the trees once more, a bright swatch of color against a dark, foreboding background.

Seedy watched him go with a sigh. "I wonder if he actually paid good money for that getup. Maybe he's colorblind."

"No, he's just 'cool.'Or thinks he is."

"Mmm," Seedy agreed.

"Well, let's keep moving. There's gotta be a Pikachu around here somewhere. Come on Dude."

Dude did not respond.

"Dude? Dude, where are you?" Jake called, beginning to worry. The Rattata had never strayed very far before now. Where had he gone off to?

"Dude, chill, man," came a voice from somewhere nearby. "I'm comin'." Dude emerged from behind the twisted trunk of a half-dead tree, something golden smeared across his white whiskers. "Dude, come with me, there's this totally awesome sweet stuff over there," he said, gesturing with his curled tail.

"Sweet stuff?" Jake asked suspiciously. He bent down to inspect the Rattata's innocent face. "Where did you get this sweet stuff?" he asked, kneeling down and reaching out to brush a small bit off of Dude's whiskers."

"This big yellow thing," Dude replied helpfully. Jake tentatively inspected the golden goo on his finger carefully. It wasn't…it couldn't be…

"This is honey!" he shrieked, trying wildly to wipe his finger off on a nearby tree trunk. All that he succeeded in doing was coating his finger with dirt, but he didn't notice as he grabbed Seedy around her middle and straightened up quickly.

"Hey!" Seedy cried.

"Come on! Run, Dude! Beedrill attack!" Jake yelled wildly. He stumbled off, ignoring the path as he dodged trees in his panicked flight. He thought he heard Dude yelling something to him from behind, but he didn't stop to listen. He at last tripped over a partially exposed tree root and went down, Seedy flying out of his arms to land somewhere nearby. He drew himself into a ball, trembling and waiting for the terrible drone of wings, the sharp pain of huge, poisonous stingers burying themselves in his body…

"What was that for?" Seedy asked irritably, trundling back over to him.

He refused to uncurl, still waiting for the end. It was too late to run… 

"Oh, quit acting like a big baby," Seedy said exasperatedly, butting him gently with he head. "Nothing's coming to kill you."

"Didn't you hear?" Jake asked. "Dude stole honey from a beedrill hive! They'd never let that go unpunished!"

"Dude, like, the bee-things don't care," Dude announced, finally catching up to his trainer and Seedy, having been following Jake's frantic flight at a sedate and rational walk. "Seriously, dude, you've gotta come and get some of that honey stuff for yourself. It rocks, dude."

"Beedrill don't care?" Jake asked, sitting up sheepishly. "But that's impossible. Beedrill are incredibly vicious and will attack anything that comes into their territory, much less anything that waltzes up and grabs some honey from their hive."

"Come on, man, I'll show ya," Dude said. Jake got up and followed the Rattata dazedly, Seedy trotting in the rear. Dude led the trio back across the path and off into the forest on the other side. Sure enough, as they rounded one particularly large tree, Jake caught sight of the beedrill hive.

The massive conical structure hung near the center of the clearing, and Jake gaped at its size. A massive hole in the bottom of the beedrill hive allowed the pokémon to come and go as they pleased. The trees around the hive were teeming with industriously munching weedle. Motionless kakuna hung from the tree branches all about the clearing, appearing to be grotesque, intelligent fruit. But most stunning of all were the beedrill themselves.

Lounging idly around below the hives, the beedrill were not rigorously patrolling the area, seeking out trainers or pokémon to chase away. A few buzzed up into or down from the hive itself, but they moved slowly and calmly, not in the frenzied rage that Jake had so often heard described.

"Come on, dude," Dude implored, bounding out into the clearing surrounding the hive eagerly, ignoring Jake's frantic sign that language asked him to sit still and be quiet.

The beedrill turned their heads to track the rattata's progress, emotionless compound eyes reflecting him in every facet. Jake held his breath, waiting in dread for the vicious pokémon to fall upon Dude, tearing at him with their wicked stingers.

"Yo dudes, I'm back," Dude announced, plopping down in the center of the clearing, directly below the hole in the bottom of the hive.

"Welcome back, Dude," said one Beedrill. She appeared to be the queen, reclining against a tree trunk on the opposite side of the open area. Unlike domesticated bee queens, beedrill queens were not accustomed to being waited upon by their male cohorts. The most powerful bees in the hive, they were the deadliest fighters of them all. Jake shivered as the queen raised the harpoon-like stinger on her right forelimb, though it was only to wave to Dude.

The queen's antennae twitched, and she turned to look around Dude, straight at Jake. "Tell your trainer that he can come out of hiding. If we wished him harm, he would already be running for his life."

Dude turned around, apparently ready to do so, but Jake was already walking slowly around the tree and into plain view. The other beedrill turned their attention to him, and he blanched as their cold eyes trapped him in their gaze.

"Greetings, trainer," the queen hummed. "What brings you here to our hive?"

"Umm, Dude said that he got honey here," Jake replied.

"Ah, yes," the queen said with a nod. "Would you like some as well?"

"Err, yeah," Jake responded uncertainly.

"Me too," Seedy demanded.

"Get these two some honey," the queen commanded, buzzing her wings threateningly. Two other beedrill hopped to it, rising up from the ground and disappearing into their hive. They returned quickly, approaching Jake and Seedy.

Jake felt his terror return to him as the beedrill approached. The droning of their wings and the glinting of a stray ray of light on their abdominal stingers caused his fear to return. The lead beedrill raised a forestinger to run him through…

…and there was an oozing piece of honeycomb impaled on it. The Beedrill held the stinger out to him, and Jake carefully removed the gooey honeycomb from it. He held the sticky treat up in front of his face in disbelief as the Beedrill turned and buzzed back to where he had previously been reclining on the forest floor. Seedy accepted her piece of honeycomb as well, biting into it with relish. A dribble of honey oozed down Jake's hand. He licked it off absent-mindedly, then asked the queen, "Why are you all just sitting around here instead of patrolling the forest like you're supposed to?"

"We're on strike," the queen explained. "It gets a little tiring, you know, being the evil pokémon of the forest. My hive has refused to return to work until the author agrees to provide us with decent motivations and compensation for the amount of work time that we lose chasing idiots out of our forest."

"Nobody thinks that beedrill are evil," Jake said without thinking.

"Oh, come on," the queen buzzed in annoyance. "What's _always _the pokémon that chases a trainer out of the forest? What pokémon shows up when the author needs a convenient excuse for their character to run like hell and get lost? What pokémon swarms in to disrupt an otherwise sedate, innocent stroll through the local forest?"

"Err, I guess you have a point," Jake admitted.

"Of course I have a point!" the queen snarled. She took her anger out on the tree next to her, slamming her left stinger viciously into its trunk. It drove nearly six inches into the unfortunate plant, sap oozing freely from the deep puncture wound. Seedy, who had finished her honeycomb and was listening in on the conversation, winced in sympathy with the tree's pain. The queen withdrew her stinger and wiped it on the carpet of dead leaves next to her. When she spoke next, she seemed to have regained control. "All we ask is that there's someone else to share the burden. Why can't the main character be pursued by a rampaging sneasel for once? Or maybe a pidgeotto? Or even just a particularly irate butterfree?"

A resounding hum of "Hear, hear!" resounded from the surrounding beedrill at this statement.

"Well, why not get the spearow to do it for you?" Jake suggested.

"No, no, no, you're missing the point," the queen said, waving a forestinger dismissively. "The spearow have their wings full terrorizing the plains, as I'm sure you well know. And the gyrados are booked solid for the oceans. It's too much for a species to handle, I tell you. The stereotype's a bit much to bear."

Jake munched on his honeycomb absently, listening with interest to the beedrill's explanation. Come to think of it, he hadn't been attacked by any "evil" pokémon yet. He rolled his eyes heavenward questioningly, then shrugged and returned to his treat.

"In fact, all of those species are on strike, too," the queen continued. "I don't suppose that you were attacked by a spearow flock on your way here?" Jake shook his head. "Case in point. They were scheduled for chapter two, but they were obviously a no-show. They're tired of being considered evil, too."

"I can understand that," Jake said. "Listen, I hope that your strike goes well and all, but I sort of have to be going now. I need to catch a pikachu and be out of here by nightfall so I can earn my first badge tomorrow."

"Oh, after a pikachu, are you?" the queen asked, her antennae twitching thoughtfully. "Are you really sure that you want one? I wouldn't recommend catching one, myself."

"Of course I'm sure. I need a pikachu to establish myself as one of the great cliché trainers. It's absolutely necessary to advance the plot."

"Well, it's your sanity," the queen observed. "Try the west corner of the forest. Mind you keep an eye on the trees, they like to scamper up there to avoid detection. Most of the dunces after them are too thick to look up."

"Thanks. Bye then," Jake said politely. "Come on, Dude."

"Sure thing, man," Dude replied, bounding over to Jake. "See ya, bee-things."

"Farewell, Dude," the hive chorused. Jake and his two pokémon departed.

Half an hour later, Seedy was beginning to have second thoughts about catching a pikachu. "Listen, are you really sure that this is such a good idea? I mean, the queen even recommended that you not catch a pikachu. Sounds to me like it could be more trouble than it's worth."

"Quiet, you'll scare away all of the electric rodents," Jake hissed back, peering anxiously up into the tree branches. The gnarled boughs were as bare as ever, much to his disappointment. Dude had returned to his pokéball for a nap, and Seedy's cynicism was beginning to grate on his nerves. He tried to tune her voice out as he scanned the trees.

A small yellow head popped around the base of an ancient, gnarled trunk. Seedy, being more or less at its level, noticed immediately. Jake continued to stare determinedly up into the trees. The pikachu's black-tipped ears twitched once uncertainly before it scampered out from behind the tree, stopping conveniently right in the middle of the path. Jake slowly approached, still craning his neck upward.

Seedy made vehement gestures to try to indicate to the pikachu that it should get away as quickly as possible; certainly it didn't want to get stuck with a trainer like Jake.

The pikachu observed the bulbasaur's violent jabbing motions and contorted facial expressions with mild interest. It cocked its head slightly as Seedy practically rammed right into one of Jake's legs during her "running" performance. It then lost interest and, settling down on its haunches, scratched itself behind the ear with one of its hind feet.

Seedy, seeing that her window of opportunity was closing as Jake drew nearer the rodent and that the pikachu wasn't getting anything out of her performance at all, tried very discreetly to convey her message verbally. "Listen," she hissed whilst nervously glancing up at Jake, "you've gotta get outta here fast. You don't want to join up with us, trust me. Go find yourself champion material somewhere else."

The pikachu ceased scratching and perked up its ears. It blinked twice and rose back onto it hind legs."

"Did you say something, Seedy?" Jake asked absently, not really wanting to hear it, even if she had.

"No, your eminence," Seedy replied. To the pikachu, she added, "Go on, move it! He may not be smart, but even he can't possibly miss you for more than a couple more seconds!"

The pikachu smiled vacuously back.

"Are you _braindead_?" Seedy snarled in an undertone.

"Pika," the pikachu announced, goofy smile still in place. Jake, registering the call of his quarry, tore his eyes out of the canopy and back down to ground level. "A pikachu! Finally! Go, Seedy!"

"Oh, sure, a pikachu 'finally,'" Seedy groused as she reluctantly stepped forward to do battle. The pikachu must be playing dumb for some reason; she couldn't imagine a rodent so stupid actually managing to survive in the wild.

The battle was intense but brief, the pikachu sending a few minor fizzles Seedy's way, though they did little damage against the grass-type. Her leech seed finally took its toll upon the yellow pokémon. It collapsed wearily on the path, still managing to look desperately cute as it did so. Jake grinned widely and grabbed one of the empty pokéballs from his belt.

He pitched it at the electric mouse perhaps a little more exuberantly than he should have. The pikachu yelped as the hurled object struck it full in the face, though the cry was cut short as it was caught within the pokéball's energy beam. The device snapped shut as the last trace of red energy disappeared inside, thudding back down onto the forest floor.

The ball shivered angrily, but Jake had already begun his victory dance. His revelry was cut short, however, when the ball gave a particularly violent hop-jerk and leapt into the air, belching a cloud of white light back onto the path. The spent ball dropped again and the pikachu kicked it away angrily.

The rodent was a changed creature; electric sparks radiated from its pink cheeks and its eyes were narrowed in a determined and decidedly un-adorable fashion. It crouched in a ready stance on the spongy carpet of leaves, apparently raring to battle despite its numerous wounds.

Seedy, who had also been congratulating herself on another victory, was startled. "Well, looks like the little guy has a bit of fight in him after all," she chuckled.

"Hey!" Jake cried indignantly. "That's not fair! I'm the protagonist! You're not supposed to break free, you're supposed to put up a great fight but then succumb to capture."

The pikachu had apparently remembered this unwritten rule as well. It gulped visibly before slumping down on the path once more, utterly deflated. Grumbling irritably, Jake reached for another ball and pitched it, more gently this time, at the cowed pokémon.

The pokéball gave a few half-hearted twitches, finally snapping completely shut with a hollow clunk. "All right!" Jake said. "I finally got a pikachu!"

"Gee, and after all that work," Seedy said. "They may be one of the rarest and most sought-after critters in all of Kanto, but of course one walks right up to you and practically begs to be captured…"

"Oh, shut up, would you?" Jake sighed. "You're ruining my second capture experience."

"Get used to it, kid," Seedy growled. "You're stuck with me until I become pilfered by Team Rocket or disappear due to some equally convenient plot device."

"Have you been reading ahead in the script?" Jake asked, surprised.

"Maybe. Maybe not. With a plot this cookie-cutter, you ought to be able to figure it out on your own. Go on, pick up your pikachu and let's keep going. It's almost lunchtime, you know."

Jake spared Seedy another quizzical look before bending down to retrieve the pokéball now occupied by his pikachu. Seedy retrieved the useless pokéball from where it had come to rest against the trunk of a tree apparently felled by lighting and returned it to Jake, who threw it into his pack to try and find and recycle at the next center that they came to.

The journey through the forest was after this point uneventful, as Jake was focused solely on getting out and not at all interested in tantalizing detours or local fauna. Eventually the trees began to thin out, and Jake at last stepped onto the tame second half of Route 2. Ahead, a gray haze seemed to lie over the landscape. Seedy could guess that a steady, dispiriting drizzle was probably falling from the melancholy clouds that huddled despondently just ahead, clearly resentful of the rest of the cheerily blue sky, and sighed resignedly.

"Look, Seedy," Jake said excitedly. "Pewter City's just a little ways ahead!"


End file.
